‘It’s you who’s living in the past,’ Amber hissed as she shook with fury. ‘What use are fossil fuels when they’re going to run out? They’re going to be gone, Huck, sooner than you probably think. We’re using more and more every day and yet there is only a finite supply. It’s like those idiots hunting tigers in Russia and India to grind up their bones for use in mythical medicines, the Japanese catching sharks just for their fins and whales just for their blubber. Once they’re gone, they’re all gone! They’re so busy chasing profit that they don’t realise that before they know it, the source of that profit will be gone entirely. And then where will they go? Your company makes its fortune from coal, but that coal will be totally gone eventually, Huck. What are you going to do then? Any smart businessman worth their salt would already be looking for somebody like my father to give them an advantage in the future to start the revolution now, but no. Far better for you to simply take the cash and run, and let your poor son have to sort it all out in twenty or thirty or fifty years time when Seavers Incorporated collapses into ruin at his feet.’ Amber shot him a jubilant smile of distaste. ‘Well played, Huck, well played.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that?’
‘Doesn’t look like it to me.’
‘It wouldn’t, would it? Because to you, people like me are the enemy, our black hearts filled with oil and coal, determined to destroy the world. But we did not create this problem, it was created for us hundred years ago and now we labour beneath its consequences. I don’t want to blow the tops off mountains to make a living. I didn’t want to make the inhabitants of Clearwater disappear. This isn’t about environmentalism, Amber, it’s about control. It’s about the fear of governments losing control over their people because the government becomes irrelevant, no longer needed for people to survive happily. The people I’m answering to don’t want that to happen, ever.’
Amber stared at Huck for a long moment, never having considered for herself the possibility that Huck Seavers was merely one more pawn in a long chain that led to heights of government she had never really thought about before.
‘Who are they?’
Huck shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that because in truth I don’t actually know, but they are incredibly powerful and believe me they have a firm grip on what’s happening. If I’d discovered that your father had created his fusion cage before they did, I’d have offered to buy him out. I wouldn’t have given the device away for free, I admit, because there’s so much potential in it. But by Christ I would have bought it and I would have created a whole new industry, made billionaires of both myself and your father and changed the world at the same time. Don’t you think I would rather have done that than sent people up a mountain to slice the top off it? Don’t think I’d rather have done that than fight long and complex legal battles, regardless of how powerful my lawyers might be? Don’t you think I’d rather be selling something that could fit into anybody’s boiler cupboard, worldwide, than pissing about digging in the cold in Virginia?’
Amber felt her blood run cold and she sat in absolute silence as she stared at Huck for what felt like a very long time.
‘You’d have gone with my father’s device?’ she uttered in disbelief.
‘Of course I would!’ Huck almost shouted in exasperation. ‘But they had me over a barrel! If I hadn’t complied they’d have got somebody else to do it and Huck Seavers would have been destitute by the end of the week! You think I have powerful lawyers? These people appear to be able to control entire governments — they would have crushed me like a worm and left me with nothing. Your war, it shouldn’t be with me. It should be against this shadow government that seems to operate behind the scenes! Your father is running from the wrong people and straight into the arms of his enemies.’
Amber suddenly realised the depths to which some people had gone in order to keep her father’s device safely out of the public eye. Huck Seavers, the perfect foil to the environmental movement, in fact a human shield for those with the power to save humanity or destroy it.
‘We have to find my father as fast as we can,’ Amber said, ‘and I think that I can call my mom.’
‘You can reach her?’ Huck asked.
‘I have my cell phone,’ Amber said. ‘I’ve carried it ever since I left Clearwater.’
‘Finally,’ Huck said with a heave of relief. ‘The sooner we can get your family to safety, the sooner we can figure something out. I want in on this, Amber. Yes, I want to profit from it, but if this gets out it effectively neutralises the very people who are causing all of this — they won’t hold power over me any longer and they won’t be able to stop what’s happening.’
Amber felt excitement rippling through her veins as she sat upright in her seat.
‘Do you have any idea where my dad is?’
‘I think so,’ Huck replied. ‘Let’s try to call your mom first, and find out where she is so that we can warn her of … ’
A sudden deafening blast shook the vehicle and a clatter of gunfire caused Amber to scream as she threw herself down on the back seat. Bullets crashed through the SUV’s windscreen and it swerved violently off the asphalt road and plunged into the desert dunes.
XIX
Ethan saw the first grenade lobbed from the side of the asphalt road arc through the air, a black speck against the brilliant sunrise as the small convoy of vehicles approached. The militants had set up their ambush well, positioning themselves in a staggered line with the sun almost at their backs, the glare helping to conceal them from the view of the drivers.
Two more grenades bounced across the sun — scorched asphalt and Ethan threw his hands over his ears and ducked his head down behind a low dune just before the weapons detonated with a series of deafening blasts. He counted all three before he dared look up to see the four vehicles in the convoy swerving across the road, tires screeching as they slid to a halt and a clatter of machine — gun fire rattled out across the desert as the militants opened fire on the vehicles.
‘Hold your fire!’
Ethan’s cry was muted by the staccato gunshots as the militants swarmed up the sandy banks by the side of the road and dashed toward the vehicles, yelling threats in Arabic and broken English.
‘Move, now!’ Ethan yelled at Lopez.
They dashed together onto the road and headed directly for the SUV in the centre of the convoy even as Ethan saw flashes of gunfire coming from the cabs of the vehicles in front as Huck Seavers’ escort began returning fire against the militants. Ethan reacted instinctively, dropping down onto the asphalt as he drew his pistol and aimed at the nearest escort guard, a man with a scar on his cheek who was now shielding himself behind an open door and firing through the shattered window at the militants.
Ethan could see from his position the SUV that almost certainly contained Huck Seavers and Amber, the vehicle having left the road and slammed into a sand dune. Clouds of wispy blue smoke slithered from beneath the hood where the radiator must have ruptured, while oil spilling from a damaged filter onto the hot engine smouldered with brown coils of smoke.
Ethan took a breath and held it for a brief second before pulling the trigger of the pistol. The shot crackled out and he saw the guard with a scar on his cheek hurled backwards as the round hit him in the shoulder. The guard slumped against the side of the vehicle with his legs out in front of him.